I hate to leave a review like this as I have previously been to this venue and had a lovely host and enjoyed the Ghost of Old Maid Milly room. However this experience was not enjoyable at all.
Frustrating. Staff seemed confused we were there, having booked online days before. Waited a long time for our host to then arrive who seemed to be just a worker from the hotel rather than dedicated staff for the escape room, which is fine, but he didn't seem completely confident in what he was doing. Gave us a very short breifing made us sign a form and then handed us a walkie talkie with no explaination.
The theming at the begining of the game was goodhowver the game felt very repetative, back a forth between the same items the whole game. We were also informed that half of the padlocks we were solving and opening did not in fact need to be done to complete the game?! The strangest of red herrings of solving riddles/puzzles which then led to nowhere??
We were specifically told during the breifing that we wont need to move anything heavy/large etc and to not pull on anything. Many items we needed involved prying things with our fingers and we missed this as we were worried about breaking the set! Contining in the game was also needed to move a very large item which of course we didn't even attempt as we were told by our host to not move large items?!
We asked for help from our host multiple times throughout the game, to clarify we weren't going to break something for example, and he would not reply. He just appeared in the game at one point telling us to do something. I used this opportunity to check whether our walkie talkie was working and that he could hear us ok to which he said 'yes ive heard everything'. So i can't understand why we weren't getting a response.
After completing the game we were handed a card to leave a review. It was a small business like card that I assumed was for us to take home to review in our own time. As we said thank you and tried to leave he snatched the card out of my hand and said 'you cant take this home', I apologized for the confusion and proceeded to try and take a photo of the card so I had the details to review. He said I couldn't do this and that I must review before I leave. We came as a group , some of which had a train to catch and so I said we won't have time to do it now and began walking out. The host then actually stood in front of me blocking the exit saying I have to review now to leave?! I was very shocked by this and just said 'we have a train to catch!' and left in a hurry.
I hate to leave a bad review as, like I said, I have previously had a good experience here. Unfortunately, this staff member has put me off coming back again.
